Sunday, November 29, 2015

Char B1 has a past till 1919 as an idea of concept of a breakthrough tank development in France. Researches on the machine advanced in different steps and renewed due to developing requirements. Finally, Char B1 was started to produce at the end of 1935, and in early 1937, the production was switched to the favour of better Char B1 bis.

Char B1 bis had one 75 mm howitzer, one 47 mm anti-tank gun and two 7,5 mm machine guns. The tank was 31,5 tons which made it one of the heaviest of the interwar tank technology in the world, probably the second after the Soviet T-35. Its frontal armor was 60 mm thick, a heavy protection for a breakthrough tank in early Second World War. Side armors were also thick as 55 mm. There were 369 Char B1 bis entered the service between 1937-1940.

This Char B1 bis was Trumpeter's braille scale model. After a clear assembling, I have sprayed it all with "Polisan 312 nefti yeşil" (dark green) as primer and then went on painting sand with brush. I liked the blue heart on the turret very much. I have carried out effects in two ways. At first, I used oil paints for washing, using the mopping up technique, and second I have applied to Tamiya's mud effects.

Monday, November 23, 2015

When I first took up this hobby, I worked on Tiger II (King Tiger) which is one of the legendary tanks of World War II. I was really inexperienced about painting. Therefore the model I formed appeared to be a very unprofessional, odd one. Of course I didn’t want to leave it as it was. So, I decided to color it again.

Firstly, I painted the tank with black primer again. Since the preceding dye was thin, the details didn’t disappear with the second coloring. After the primer, I decided to add a camouflage net on the tank with a technique that I saw on the internet. For this method, I used 4 bags of tea and a tube of glue. After the sticking, I painted the camouflage net into black. I dyed the net with light and dark green after coloring it into black. Lastly, to tone the net, I brushed it dry with a mixture of light and dark green.

Then, it was time to paint the vehicle with yellow and green. I decided to color the tank’s camouflage pattern with the way known as 3./s.H.Pz.Abt.501 Ohrdruf. After painting the tank into yellow at all, I did green lines on it.

After the painting process, I completed the weathering. There had been some detail loss on the tank, as a result of being painted for the second time. Lastly, I completed the model with dry brushing, here I used metallic grey.

The tank seems to be in an appealing condition, especially when it is compared with the former look it had. The only thing, I regret is not sticking out the painting I did initially.
Happy modeling,

Henk's note : Su-14 series are official 1/76 scale, but big enough to show the kits behind other 1/72 scale kits. There are no other manufacturer with all 3 variants. Only Fankit models has variant SU-14.2. Fankit SU-14.2 is a little larger.
The founded dimensions of the original vehicles are different on Internet. For some dimension they are 1/76 and for other 1/72. We can speak they are very close to 1/72.

History:

The SU-14 was a prototype Soviet heavy self-propelled
gun built on a T-35 chassis. The original prototype mounted a 203 mm howitzer
M1931 (B-4); the SU-14-1 variant of 1936 carried a 152.4 mm Br-2 (also called
Model 1935) cannon which could fire 43.5 kilogram shells at ranges up to 20 km.
Its armour was 20 to 30 mm thick. It never entered serial production.

Work on the vehicle began in 1933, with a
prototype built a year later. In 1935, several disadvantages were reworked and
another prototype was built and designated SU-14-1. In February 1937, the
prototypes successfully completed a series of performance tests. It was
expected to go into production the following year. However, in 1937, Chief
Designer - PN Siaczyntowa was removed from the program, thus halting further
development of the project.

In 1940, in connection with plans to use them
during the war with Finland, armor was added to the two existing prototypes and
they were redesignated SU-14-2. They later took part in the defense of Moscow
in 1941 alongside the prototype SU-100Y. The first one (the original SU-14
prototype) was scrapped in 1960. The second prototype, as an SU-14-2, is on
display at the Tank Museum in Kubinka.